Piece of Reality
by AlFlowerrise
Summary: People love and then they die — MattMello. Chaptered. Rather T for swearing and hints of sex. It's easy to love and hard to say goodbye. Mello's story from the beginning and the inevitable turning from friendship to romance.
1. Oil and Fire

N/A: Woh. Me? A chaptered story? Yes, I think I will try.

This chapter is like a prolog, the rest won't look like this. Also and this is a bit sad but I have no idea when I can update. I will try and I would be so happy if you want to read more but I have much homework and am rather stressed. Sorry. Thank you for reading this (: Sorry about any mistakes, my native language isn't English and I hurried through this one so please correct me if something sounds awkward.

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Piece of Reality**

People love and then they die — MattMello

1 Before

—|—

_Life was a fragile thing really. It seemed good, it seemed like it lasted forever but soon the reality stroke back and turned the bowl upside down and the truth poured down and washed your brain to zero. Life didn't last forever, no, it could be gone tomorrow. It painted your soul thinking that way, it really did, until danger flashed you around every corner and nerves were on the edge. Sometimes you just had to relax and think; what the hell, life comes and goes but I can still play with it, just a little bit longer. Truth to be told you couldn't, not if you wanted to get somewhere, not if you wanted to be fully content with your results. But that changed from person to person and in that aspect Mello and Matt were complete opposites. _

_Mello always wanted to get somewhere even though he didn't understand where 'somewhere' was. If he stopped the demons hunted him down and clawed through his skin until it bled and he couldn't see forward. Standing still meant that you waited for better times instead of chasing it and he would always be the chaser, the one of the front line that battled through armies and used impulsive tactic to break through the wall and gain access to life's bigger meanings. He rather cut than being cut, he rather killed than died. _

_He cared but not enough. He cared but mainly about himself. He cared but stopped caring because caring in this world of filthy murders and people with God-complex sent you to the underworld where you saw black and swam through blood. _

_Matt was the other side of the coin. _

_Loyal, almost to the extreme level and waited instead of acted. He sunk into the sofa while his fantasy remained with his video games, in the world of a straightforward plot and death that didn't mean anything, standing still while the world drown in despair and only cared about the damn price on cigarettes and new video games. He was never the chaser but he wasn't in the back line either, no, he simply didn't care about the misfortunes with the excuse that what the hell could he do? Somehow it was true but still: the waiting game killed Mello, it really killed Mello. That wasn't their only difference and how the hell they came to blend so well together and create art was something he failed to grasp and in all honesty that was for the best. Matt was a mystery and with that the tension started burning. _

_Matt was the oil and Mello the fire and together they created catastrophe. And neither of them cared. _

—|—

The first time he met Matt he wasn't too fond of the kid.

Matt sat in the sofa with pads in a facet of green—but it could have been yellow too—with a cigarette swinging in the left corner of his thinned lips and hands on the controller, fingers slamming buttons in a speed that would make a writer envious. The smoke from the cigarette danced up to the ceiling like thin fingers and the pillar of ash would soon escape the tip and hurry to the pads. He covered his bloodstained eyes with a pair of goggles that made him look more ridiculous than cool and his fringe fell in front of his eyes as he moved his body in timing to the game. Mello closed the door behind him and tilted to the wall, watching boringly as he cracked a bar of chocolate between his teeth.

It didn't take long though before Matt paused the game and threw a glance at Mello's direction, eyes carefully narrowed as he moved a finger to the cigarette to remove it from his dry lips as he started to speak. "Do you want something?"

Mello only moved his shoulder and toyed with his golden hair. "No."

Matt put out the cigarette and pulled out one more from the packet of cigarettes. "That doesn't make any sense," he mumbled and lighted the cigarette like he was on the mood of killing himself with smoke today.

"Smoking yourself to death doesn't either," Mello said with a small grin.

"Who are you, my mother?" Matt asked and sunk deeper into the sofa, eyes under the red fringe. "Go away."

One thing Mello didn't appreciate was then others told him what to do and this Matt was no exception. You didn't need to be a genius to comprehend that Mello had a specific role in this building and he had grown so fond of the title that he couldn't take when strangers tried to take it away from him. He walked closer to the sofa and swept down next to Matt, tried to drill inside Matt's skin and watching his true intentions but it was like looking through a glass of water, it contained nothing. "Don't fuck with me," he hissed and snapped the cigarette from Matt's grasp and swung it in front of his eyes.

"I don't want to fuck with you, you're ugly," Matt said smugly and tried to snatch back his cancer-stick. "Give me that! It's not yours."

"I don't want you dead."

"You don't even know me and I don't want to let you either. Give it back, bastard."

"No," Mello said and extinguished the cigarette in the ashtray.

"I hate you."

"You can't hate people you don't know," Mello said and rested his left arm on the backrest while continuing to drain out Matt's inner thoughts. It didn't work.

"You don't bother people you don't know," Matt smashed back and returned to the television. This kid was fairly accurate when it came to snooty replies and Mello couldn't help but to find that amusing even though Matt in general solely pissed him off with that laid-back attitude that he couldn't stand. Still, Matt awakened feelings he didn't think he had left before he started walking around inside Wammy's high, thick walls, a feeling that wasn't hatred. Mello was born to hate and it was the hate—black and strong and alluring—that made him walk forward. He hated snooty people, he hated being the second one, he hated _Near_, he hated everything despite chocolate. It was easy to hate and hard to love. It was easy to interrupt and hard to listen. It was easy to walk away and hard to remain. But he couldn't walk away from Matt. Not yet.

"Hell, why spilling time on this crap? What game is it?"

Matt's eyes become round like gemstones and his jaws seemed to detach and he looked like a nesting-box. "Crap? How dare you call this crap? This is Final Fantasy and it's fucking nostalgia you know! Man, I get an orgasm every time I—"

"Shut up," Mello interrupted, glaring bored at the screen where a blonde dude with a massive sword ran around in a city.

"Your videogame knowledge is lacking," Matt pointed out, almost sounding understanding. "That man is Cloud Strife. You will be sent to jail if you don't know him."

"I don't _care_," Mello scowled, biting off another bar of the chocolate. "I don't fucking want to talk about your videogames."

"Well, go ahead. Ask me something else."

When he said it like that, straight to the point with eyes locked with his, Mello couldn't answer. He barely remembered why he was here in the first place and he felt ridiculous. And _no one _made Mello feel ridiculous without commitment. It was law.

"Nothing. I should go."

Matt lifted one of his eyebrows. "You don't make much sense now."

"Do you know who I am?"

"Not really. I never talked to you before."

Matt was surprisingly ignorant, not even bothering learned the names of his classmates and more importantly _his name_. Mello was rather egocentric, there was no way around it and that was why he couldn't stand the fact being the second. He wasn't a loner like Near—hell, he was _nothing _like Near—but he wasn't the gentlest human around. Not that it mattered. But this was different, Matt didn't follow him like a dog in a leash, he challenged him. Interesting.

"You're Matt right?" Mello asked, pulling the string further instead of cutting it.

Matt nodded and fumbled after the packet of cigarettes. Mello didn't stop him. "Yeah. I'm Matt. And I lied before, I know who you are but it's funny to make you dumbstruck. You're Mello."

Mello couldn't help but to smile, a smile so small no one could see it but it was still there. "Yeah."

Matt had authority and it made him interesting, so interesting he wanted to put Matt in a bottle and study him with the magnifying-glass. Mello rose up from the sofa, throwing a sideway glance at Matt before he walked to the door, leaving the conversation where it was.

_You're Matt. I'm Mello. We both start with the letter M. The return in enviable. _

Mello wasn't too fond of the kid but he couldn't deny that he was damn interesting.

—|—

_Pushing death only made it come back. Sorry, but you couldn't escape, you could only toy with the possibilities which neither led to a solution. Mello couldn't stop it, Matt couldn't stop it, damn, even Near couldn't stop it. Stop death. No one could. _

_Death scared Mello. It didn't scare Matt. It also was one of their differences. Mello had a weakness where Matt had not and the weakness cut holes through him and made him bleed out the agony. Waiting. Dreading. Knowing. It made it impossible to relax, to see things as they were, to use his time to treat Matt like Matt deserved. But Matt couldn't help him. Matt couldn't stop it. _

_He only made Mello burn faster._

—|—

to be continued


	2. Commitment Together

NA: Heyheyhey. I should be sleeping now! But I'm not! Instead I've written this. I'm starting to understand how I manage to write as much with still so much going around me. I write when I should be studying. I write when I have free time. I hope that isn't a bad thing? :) I don't own Death Note, if I did then Matt would get soooo much more screen-time! He's awesome. He's getting a lot of screen-time in this!

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**Piece of Reality**

Chapter 2

—|—

Mello was a person that was easily distracted and since his life lacked color and lacked content he liked to paint it himself. Like now, as he passed the age fourteen, he still found it amusing to walk across law's thin line and gain entertainment in stealing. It was pathetic and he somehow knew it but he couldn't stop it. He wasn't content with placing his nose in books with dry pages all day; learning was crucial but so was entertainment, so was risks. People was different and he was different and he rather put dots in his register than turned his cape after the wind and somehow he knew that Matt was the same. Not with the urge to walk over to the plain of the illegal, but with the not caring thing. Matt didn't care and it was a relief inside this building where everyone cared about everything. Scores, future, dreams. Mello had dreams but they didn't consume his mind and made it foggy and obscure, at least not to the extreme level. And Matt really was the same.

Mello found himself spending more and more time together with Matt, which was peculiar since they had nothing in common when it came to entertainment. Matt tried, with one cigarette in his hands and lips purged into that wicked smile, to teach him the eureka of the video game-world but it didn't really work. Video games may have nice effects and cool explosions and interesting plot but Mello was way more concerned about his own life that a fantasy one you could turn off when it didn't fit you. Matt on the other side was captured in the nest, he couldn't get out. The games had even painted his speech and every now and then he used metaphors that didn't make a bit of sense for Mello. It was irritating but he could live with it, since Matt was more alive than anybody else inside this academic prison. He would never admit and neither would Matt but their differences and similarities kept them together with a bond that couldn't be cut.

"Hmhm, the tough leather-Mello is still alone and vulnerable on the inside?" Matt teased and the edge of the cigarette looked like a firefly in the dim light as he moved his hands.

Matt—the little fucker—didn't know how right he was. Ice-cold fingers hugged his chest, pushed him backwards, to the world where he couldn't see. He knew. He knew too much. And Matt wasn't Near, he couldn't slam Matt up to the wall and use pathetic curses to limber his hatred for everything. He couldn't with Matt. Matt enhanced another side of him he didn't know that he had.

Stupid Matt.

"So, you're gonna do bad things today again, huh?" Matt grinned and spun the remote in regular circles, his eyes locked with Mello's, in a stare that could pierce through metal. Good thing he used those stupid goggles, it made his stare a little lighter.

"I guess I will," Mello said with a bored tone in his harsh voice and put one of his feet in a leather boot which material sparkled in the soft light slipping through the window. "I'm bored."

"'Bad things'," he quoted, making air-quotes with his fingers and he looked like a cat with canary feathers in his mouth. "Dirty things?"

"Go to hell, Matt," Mello groaned and punched him on the shoulder, not caring the slightest about the fact that Matt was as fragile as porcelain when it came to receiving punches. The bastard deserved it. "And please stay there."

"I'm just toying with you," Matt said innocently and leaned closer, his white-striped shirt glued to his skin far too tightly for Mello's taste. Matt attractive? Not really. "Sorry."

"You're not sorry, you're fucking enjoying this." The hiss escaped from his stiff lips and crawled over to Matt, who—as always when something didn't fit him—waved it away like an irritating mosquito.

"If you say so, Mels. What are you gonna steal today?"

"Condoms for you, your perverted bastard," Mello said smoothly and then left him there to melt into the world of Final Fantasy, Zelda or what the hell those were called. Matt was very blunt about this, even though he had the key and it made Mello like him even more. He would never bother spilling time with someone that found it unforgivable moving over to the field of criminals. There was just something about it that prevented him from stopping. He didn't want to stop.

He started stealing when he was like six. But then it was more like a game, a simple, foolish game of gaining the other students' attention and rising in the ranks but now it was something else. Others' opinions were like a broken pensile—he couldn't use them. He didn't want to use them. He wanted the thrill, he was addicted, it was like a drug that didn't hurt him. It had gone too far, he knew, it had become a vain bowl filled with nothing, his life. He needed to fill it with crimes. And he really did.

The biggest challenge was stealing from Roger—that greedy old man certainly _did _need some distraction—and therefore was the most usual target for his deeds. However, today he wanted to try something else. It would be more fun if he tried to steal in public, in front of innocent fools that lived in their own pathetic thoughts of new makeup and parties, and that was exactly what he was planned today. Fuck hell he was going to care about his reputation, or Wammy's reputation, or Roger's opinions, it meant absolutely nothing to him. He did what he wanted, always. Even if it meant filling his register with black paint, punching Near or getting closer to Matt. He followed his mind.

He walked out from Wammy's sturdy walls and inhaled the ice-cold air as his boots clicked on the road ahead, moving forward, moving closer, closer to his imagined goal. With one hand clenched around his chocolate he looked around London's filthy street—where graffiti was the personal message of a cult moving too fast forward—for an affair he could rob. He didn't really feel at home out here, where he wasn't the only one that found laws boring and fruitless, but he knew where to start. About one section away from Wammy's, sandwiched between a shop that sold make-up and a pub laid a dirty little shop that sold everything from porn magazines—something for Matt—to candy. But the supply held no interest for him, more the fact that the place had no surveillance cameras and no guards, nothing. This would be a piece of cake. Interesting but easy.

He pulled the chocolate down in one pocket of his jacket and walked inside, planning ahead with his rash brain. The worst thing you could do now was acting suspicious, walking around in circles and act on impulse since it almost smelled theft and Mello was—at least he stated that he was—a professional at this. You needed to have a goal, looking like you searched for something, maybe pause a little and then decide that you didn't need it. Easy and worked all the time. He smiled a little as he passed through the glass-door and walked straight to the magazines. Mello hated magazines, he hated gossips. Gossips were for those who couldn't fill their spare time with something useful, it was for those who weren't content with what they had in their own life. Mello wasn't that far in the mud. Not yet. He let his eyes scan across the lines of papers, snickered a little while thinking if he should buy a Mother to Be-magazine to Matt just to piss him off before he caught himself drifting off when he needed to be alert. At the other side of the shop, which shelves luckily covered the counter with the chain-smoking girl with blood-red lips and blood-stained eyes, he had candies and jewelry. He aimed for the last, it would be more interesting since he could just steal candy from his classmates.

When he was there he wondered which one he should take. Jewelry in general was interesting and he liked it but the only one that had a personal touch to him hung around his throat and nothing buyable would never reach the same value as that. But the one wristband with thin loops in silver was rather nice, discrete, and was worth twenty pounds. He bruised his fingers across the cold material, thought, then watched around again. Why not? It would be stupid if he stopped now. He needed this. He so needed this. No one were close, all were filled with their own business about today's dinner or work or anything and he quickly snapped the wristband and pulled it in his pocket in a velocity that made his movement look like air before he turned to the bored stance with hands in pockets and nose up high. He walked around for about three minutes more while the trill, the sensation, the satisfaction filled his veins like a sipping poison, the bad feeling touching his tongue, staying there, it was admirable. He liked this, it was amusing. He could do it again. He really could.

But the beeping noise that said goodbye to him when he made his escape made the balloon burst into one million pieces.

—|—

"What am I supposed to do with you, Mello?" Roger signed later that day when he had tangled out Mello from the police's irritated faces and meaningless menaces and pulled the penalty himself. Not that Mello would ever listen to him. This didn't show fairness from another view, it was only embarrassing to know that his recklessness put him in this situation. That was the only reason why he had to sit here on this green chair facing Roger's cold, disappointed eyes and listen to one of these ramblings that never reached far enough to grasp him.

"Nothing?" Mello suggested and combed through his blonde hair with his long nails, as always cut in the page that made Matt snicker and the others shout _girl!_

"This isn't funny, Mello. We don't approve stealing among our students. Do you understand what a gift you have, Mello, and that you're doing absurdly well right know to throw it away?"

"I'm not. I still do my homework, don't I?" Mello said smoothly and tiled his head, using that soft tone that almost always made his will pass through. Well, both Matt and Near were an exception but they didn't count, they never counted.

"That isn't the point and I'm afraid I have to go harder on you than I have before—"

"Is stealing so wrong?" someone asked from the other side of the closed door, someone with a voice raspy and still warm as bonfire, a voice Mello had started to appreciate like ice-cream on a suntanned day. Mello lifted one eyebrow at this as he turned around to look as the door opened and Matt walked in, still chain-smoking. What was this?

"Matt, this is a personal matter between me and Mello," Roger said and pushed up his glasses so look at Matt more effectible. "Please leave."

"Hell no," Matt smashed back and moved his boots forward, closing in as he approached Mello and placed one arm around the chair's back. Mello nudged on his lips, unsure whatever he should feel relieved or afraid about this turn of event. Probably the last as Matt's reasons were as obscurant as a thick fog, clear solely for him. "I will defend him."

"Matt," Mello signed and looked him straight in the eye, without bulging. "This is not logical," he continued, careful not to swear in Roger's presence.

Matt smiled. "Mels, it is. This is taking this too far. Don't we have bigger issues in our world than stealing? Besides, I don't think the issue is about your fascination for free things."

Mello gulped, strongly considering that Matt was insane. You didn't say these things to Roger. You could say them to classmates, but not Roger. Where the hell was he going?

Matt?

"Matt, please—"

"Mello is not a Near," Matt simply stated and scored the ball in the net. Roger gaped. "Punish him if you want but don't forget this; Mello is Mello and not a Near. Near may be perfect in your world but he isn't in ours." He put a finger under the rubber-band keeping his goggles intact and pulled them off his eyes. "Please don't send him away."

Mello's chin got loose from his jaw. Was Matt getting lush? Was Matt really attached to Mello? No, it couldn't be. He would do this for anyone, wouldn't he? Wouldn't he? But still, why bring in Near? Near was Mello's biggest dilemma in life and Matt knew about this. Why did he…

Roger choked in his palm and returned his gaze to the file that laid in front of him on the desk, skipping trough a few pages with the pensile in his hand. "Thank you for telling me this, Matt," he said with a voice that told them that wasn't only a positive thing, "however, I do not appreciate that you put your nose in where it doesn't belong. This matter was between me and Mello and for that you're going to get punished too. And Mello? Be who you are. But do _not _steal. Do you understand?"

Mello moved his shoulders and placed his chin on his back of his hand. "Sure, whatever."

This was how Matt and Mello got recreational activity to clean the medals in the living room together. Mello should care about this in a negative manner. He should. But he didn't.

—|—

"Why the hell did you do it?" Mello wanted to know as they both stepped inside the square-shaped room with the enormous carpet in a pale color of yellow and bookcases starting from the floor reaching up to the ceiling, filled with books and cleanable stuff. He opened the bottle with detergent and spitted some on the towel, moving it across a medal made of silver. "It didn't help me."

Matt flicked his fringe. "Well, it didn't help me either."

"Matt, it was a serious question."

"Sure it was but I don't have a sufficient answer to content you," Matt said pulled up his sleeves of his shirt, exposing some milk-white arms with red flue. Mello wanted to pull out one just to see Matt's reaction. "Sorry that I ruined your honor, princess."

Mello rolled his eyes. "Whatever."

Matt smiled lightly. "You know, you should be more grateful. Maybe I did it for you. Because you are my friend."

"What the hell do you want from me? Gratitude? Do you want me to do something for you?"

"No," Matt swept with his eyes and started sound bored again. "For being so 'intelligent' you sure are dumber than a nut sometimes."

"Fuck you."

"Not today Mels," he grinned and pulled one of the medals closer to him, rubbing it fiercely with his pink towel.

"You are so fucking annoying."

"So are you and I like you anyway. I sure as hell don't know why though."

Mello eyed Matt and leaned to the bookshelf, placing one boot over the other one. "How can you be so sure, Matt? You don't know me."

"Not yet, but I want to know you."

"I don't."

"Too bad for you," Matt laughed and patted Mello gently on the shoulder. "Besides, you have to admit that I said some good things about Near?"

"You did. It surprised me. That's probably why I still stick with you."

"Thank you, Mels."

"Whatever."

—|—

to be continued


End file.
